


Some Mornings Are Good

by TheLadyKing



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Lola the Pitbull, M/M, Mimi the Chow Chow puppy, Past Character Death, Sam-Centric, The Wilson Clan (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 05:39:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10938123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyKing/pseuds/TheLadyKing
Summary: "And I know that some mornings, some days, are just good no matter what you do.”





	Some Mornings Are Good

**Author's Note:**

> Although it isn't directly mentioned in the fic I was inspired by the song "Sending My Love" by Zhané.

“Shit!” Steve yells down the hall. Sam looks up from the photo album in his lap and sighs. He can already smell the smoke.

“Everything alright in there?” he calls out, knowing the answer is probably ‘no’.

“Yup! I got everything under control!” Steve says followed by a loud metallic _bang_ against the floorboards of the kitchen. Mimi, their eight-week-old Chow Chow, yips and barrels down the hall and straight into their Pitbull Lola. Sam watches the two of them fuss and snap playfully after one another before sighing.

Time for damage control.

He places the photo album on the top of their glass coffee table but not before taking one last look at the picture he’d been looking at for the past however many hours. His mom is in the center smiling hard, seven-year-old Sarah on her hip laughing. Behind them Gideon is already tall at only twelve, his head placed on Darlene’s shoulder. A little to their left is him, all of ten years old and filled with fury. His arms are crossed as he glares at the camera man. A smudge of a finger in the corner is all that can be seen of his father.

He’s been thinking a lot about Paul lately. There’s a silent rule in his family that no one is allowed to talk about him but that doesn’t stop him from thinking about the man who’d raised him.

He has so many questions he wants to ask. Things he’s sure his mom knows but just hasn’t spoken of in years. He’d ask his aunts but he hasn’t had much contact with that side of his family. Not since his father’s oldest sister, Miriam, moved back to their home to Trinidad. Her kids were mostly still in the states but they rarely wanted to get together and he didn’t like any of his uncles enough to approach them.

“Fuck, fuck!” Steve shouts. Sam grimaces and stands, smiling briefly at where Mimi and Lola have settled. Lola’s rolled over on her side, dozing, while Mimi’s laid up on top of her, yawning as she kicks her little legs out.

“You two behave,” he teases before moving out of the living room and into the hallway. It’s like walking straight into a wall of smoke, instantly his eyes begin to water. He makes it into the kitchen and immediately turns to open the large windows that surround the space. In the smoke he can’t exactly pinpoint Steve but he knows the man is somewhere in all that mess.

“Let me cook the ham, he says. Got the recipe down, he says,” Sam grouses. When all the windows, save the one above the sink, are open he turns and begins to look for his man. He doesn’t have to look very far. Steve’s huddled on the floor, his back against the oven door with the black remains of the ham in his lap.

“Hey,” Sam whispers, coming closer to him. Steve doesn’t look up at him, just gestures with a limp hand at the burnt husk. Sam crouches next to him and pats his arm.

“How about we order from that Colombian place you like? We can get all the arepas money can buy,” he says, smiling. Steve looks up at him with red rimmed eyes and Sam sucks in a breath. With one of Steve’s mitted hands he pushes the ham out of his lap and replaces its weight with his own.

“Hey baby, it’s okay. We can go to the supermarket and buy another one. We’ll do it together and it’ll come out all right,” he whispers soothingly, his arms wrapped around Steve’s shaking shoulders.

They sit there silently, Steve crying humiliated tears into his shoulder as the smoke begins to clear.

After a while he pulls back and offers Steve a smile, knowing before he can stop himself that what he’s gonna say next is the wrong thing. “It’s a good thing I ate a sandwich before you tried burning down the kitchen.”

Steve frowns and sniffles. “I was trying to do something nice for you, Sam.”

“I mean, yeah, but you still almost suffocated the rest of us non-super soldiers in the house,” Sam says, rolling his eyes and standing.

“I’m sorry.”

Sam shrugs. “Hey, it’s all alright. You’re just not allowed in the kitchen for the next week.”

“You don’t have to… I’m not a child.” Steve stands and crosses his arms.

“Of course, you’re not. You just can’t cook unsupervised.” Sam moves around the kitchen and begins surveying the mess that had been hidden by all the smoke. Miscellaneous splotches of varying color mark the counter top. On the cutting board are several stalks of asparagus, cut into uneven morsels. On the stove top half the bag of flour is spilled, what remains of an attempted cheese sauce sits in a lump in the center of one of his good pans.

“It looks worse than it is,” Steve says quickly, moving to begin the cleanup process.

“I don’t think that’s possible.” Sam sighs and begins to help. The sooner their done the sooner he’ll get his arepas.

When their mostly done, all that’s left is to wash the dishes, Sam pulls out his phone and scrolls to his UberEats app. Behind him Steve fusses over the burnt ham, trying to scrap it out of the pan and into the trash.

“How many do you want and what do you want to go with them?” Sam asks. Steve looks up from scrapping the ham out the pan, his brows furrowed.

“How many of what? I thought we were going to the grocery store.”

Sam sighs. “Steve I don’t really feel like making a meal that takes four hours with you tonight. It’s already getting late.”

“But you said we could do it right this time. I really want to do this for you, Sam. And I know I can if you just give me some time.”

Sam scuffs. “You want to burn down the house for me, thanks but no thanks.”

Steve sputters, dropping the whole pan into the trash. “I didn’t mean for it to get that bad in here. While I was cutting the asparagus the roux started clumping and while I was trying to fix that the ham was burning and… things just got a little out of hand.”

“And what’s stopping any of that from happening again?”

“You said… if you help then we can get this all done in no time. We can still save the roux. Put the macaroni and cheese together, drive to the supermarket and grab a ham, and then we’ll put that together and it’ll all be done before you know it.”

“Steve, I know I said I’d help but doesn’t that sound like a lot to you? We just spent the last hour and a half cleaning the kitchen and there’s still a pile of dishes in the sink. You started cooking at three and it’s seven right now. I don’t understand why you’re being so pigheaded about this.”

Steve glares. “I’m being so ‘pigheaded’ because I want you to have a good dinner!”

Sam puts his hands on his hips, defiantly. “I will have a good dinner once I get a cheese filled corn cake in my mouth!”

“Of course. Of course, you’re being like this. Darlene said you’d be difficult,” Steve grumbles.

“And what does that mean?”

“Never mind, Sam. Just order whatever you want.” Steve turns and begins to wash the dishes.

“Wait, this isn’t over. What were you guys talking about?”

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to argue Sam, I just want to clean the dishes and then take a long shower, okay?”

“What were you guys talking about?”

Steve sighs and turns off the faucet, his back still to Sam and he begins drying is hands.

“I just wanted to make this easier for you, I know it has to be hard.”

“What’s hard is not understanding what you’re talking about.”

Steve turns and looks Sam over with his sad blue eyes. He looks away and at the magnetic calendar pinned to the freezer door. Today’s date is circled in red and ‘X’ed out with the big black lines of a marker. He can just barely make out the date and when he does he feels like his whole chest has caved in. How could he have forgotten

It’s the anniversary of Paul’s death.

“Sam?” Steve steps forward, reaching his hand out. Sam shakes his head and groans, feeling his world tilt off kilter. He’d been fine all day, thinking wistfully of his family the whole while forgetting that on this very day twenty-two years before he’d watched Gideon rock his father’s lifeless body in his arms. He’d made Sarah run back home to tell their mother and while he stood there, watching his father bleed out.

A stranger with a gun had lit up the park they’d been walking through. Sam had dove instantly to pull Sarah out of harm’s way and hid under one of the tube slides until the bullets had stopped. They’d sat silently, shaking in each other’s arms until they’d heard Gideon let out an anguished scream.

Fearing the worst, they both scrambled towards the sound only to see a sight that Sam had spent years in counseling trying to get over.

His father, the best man he’d ever known, laid limp on the sidewalk. Gideon had crawled over to him and pulled him to his chest, begging him to wake up. Before Sarah could take any of it in he’d made her run and tell their mother, run for help.

“Sam?” Steve asked again, standing at his side now. “Hey, Sam, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Sam shook his head and backed away. How had Steve known? How had he remembered while he, Paul’s _son,_ hadn’t given the day any thought? How could he have forgotten the single most important moment in his whole life?

“I-I need,” he began, his throat closing up around his words. He slid onto the floor and pulled his legs into his chest, trying to calm his breathing in vain. His father was dead. There was nothing… there was nothing in the world that could make this right. No Sunday dinner was going to fix this.

“Sa-,” Steve stared.

Sam sniffled and cut him off. “Please. Just leave me alone, please. I-I forgot him. I forgot,” he cried.

They sat, side by side, on the floor while Sam cried into his knees. After what felt like hours he raised his head and looked back at the calendar. He’d forgotten.

 

Around three am, while Steve slips out of bed and gets ready for his morning run, Sam lays in bed pretending to be asleep. Not that he’s fooling Steve, he’s sure the blond has noticed his change in breathing pattern when he’d shifted out of bed.

After Steve gets dressed he heads downstairs to rouse Mimi and Lola for their morning walk.

When the trio has left out and the house is once again silent Sam reaches for his phone and quickly dials his mother’s number. Whether she’s up or not, he isn’t too sure. All he knows is that he needs to hear her voice.

“Sam, baby?” Darlene answers on the second ring. He smiles and feels like the knot in his chest is rising into his throat.

“Ma,” he says quickly around his tears. Darlene coos at him over the phone, he can hear her standing from a creaky bed and the pat of her feet as she walks.

“Baby?”

He sits up, trembling and trying to fight the tears down. “I’m sorry for waking you. I just needed to hear your voice.”

“What’s wrong, Sam?”

Sam sniffles and wipes his nose. “I forgot about dad.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I-Steve tried to make me dinner because it was the anniversary of dad’s death yesterday. And we got to arguing after he burned the ham and… I forgot. I don’t even remember what Daddy sounded like. Even when I see pictures of him all I can think about is him in Gideon’s arms. Him dead. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he explains, trying to wipe away the tears as they come. On the other side of the line Darlene sighs. He can hear her digging through something, probably her luggage.

“I’m sorry, honey. No child should ever have to see their parent like that.”

“I’m sorry, Ma. I know you’re on vacation with the girls and I’m ruining it for you.”

“Nothing’s ruined. You hear me, Samuel. I’m your mama and I know what you’re going through so you don’t have to apologize.”

Sam sighs. “I just, Ma, I just feel like I don’t remember him anymore. I don’t remember what his favorite song was or any of the stories he had about growing up in Trinidad. I know he told us, but I don’t remember anything.”

“You want Miriam’s number? I ran into Alfred, her oldest, in Harlem a little while back. Said she’d asked after us. I’m sure she’d be ecstatic to hear from you.”

“Yeah, that’d… that’d be nice. I thought about her yesterday. I always liked her out of all of Daddy’s siblings.”

Darlene chuckles. “Oh, me too baby. Your father’s brothers, with the exception of Wintson- rest his soul- well they were always a handful. Anyway, I’ll give you her number right now.”

Sam smiles. “Thank you, ma. Sorry, again, for waking you up.”

“Hush now with that talk.”

They talk for a little while longer, Darlene recounting the first time she’d met Paul at a church function. How he’d come with one of Miriam’s friends and how Paul had left the girl high and dry with Winston as he chased after Darlene.

“I felt so bad for that poor girl, Little Ruthie Ann, ditched at the food table while ya daddy tried waxing poetics with me. I s’ppose it turned out alright, though. She married Winston a few months later, in any case. Oh, they were a cute couple, them two. I’m sure you don’t remember him but Winston was as shy and soft spoken as they came. Ruthie Ann too, it’s a wonder either of them made conversation long enough to fall in love and marry. Though, I’m sure Miriam and ya daddy had something to so with all that.”

They talk a little longer before Darlene starts yawning.

“I’ll let you get off the phone,” Sam says.

“Thank you, baby. Go back to sleep yourself and apologize to Steven. I know he’s a bit of a disaster but that boy sure does love you.”

“I know, ma. I’ll fix things.”

“Mhm.”

They sit silent on the phone for a moment before Darlene speaks again. “Summertime. That was his favorite song. He had a record of Ella Fitzgerald singing it but he preferred Billie Holiday’s version. And Calypso music. He loved him some Calypso, not that he played it very often. He listened to a lot of Motown cause I listened to a lot of Motown.”

“I-”

“Listen, here, Sam. I know you feel like you’ve forgotten him and maybe the date slipped your mine but the truth is you’re so much like him. You and Sarah got all his personality between the two of you. Gideon, oh that’s all me, but yall two got his fun. His spirit. And truth is, baby, there’s only so much you’ll ever know a parent. What you remember, that’s him. And what I remember is him too and there are things no one remembers that was just as true and real. People are complicated, Paul was and you are. I am too.

“I just say that to say no matter what you know or don’t know about your daddy don’t take away from you being his son. Don’t take nothing from you being loved by him or your love for him. And you’re allowed to have a good day not wallowing in his passing. I know enjoyed yesterday. Not because I don’t love him anymore but because I do love him and I love me too. And I know that some mornings, some days, are just good no matter what you do.”

“Thank you, mama. I needed that.”

“I know you did. Call Miriam and maybe check in with your brother too when you get the chance. I talked to him today and I know yall feeling the same things. It might help to talk about it. Goodnight baby. I love you.”

“Goodnight, ma. I love you too.”

 

In the morning, Sam feels good. The sun is shining hot and smothering just beyond his closed window blinds, little tendrils of light play in the spaces left uncovered by them, beaming over lingering dust motes. He sighs happily and shifts, raising his arms over his head and then into the air before him. He wonders what it would be like to float up and touch the eggshell white of the ceiling. To flutter past it and into the clouds, the atmosphere, to the place that even time stops and stars can't reach.

It feels good to lay down like this. To just take some silent time to relish being alive. Especially after last night.

He has an appointment later with his therapist, Dr. Kafi, and he's actually excited to tell him about the fight he’d had with Steve the night before. And his talk with his mother in the early am. He feels refreshed, rolling in the cool down duvet.

His mother’s right. Some mornings are good. He’s determined that this one be one of those.

The rest of the house is unusually silent, even the usual drone of the television downstairs is gone. The only sounds that grace his ears is that of the fan overhead, rocking and working double time to beat the rising morning heat.

He sits up after an hour of simple lounging to take care of his grumbling stomach. He wonders what he should eat, he has a lot of options since grocery shopping the day before, but he finds himself wanting something simple and light.

When he makes it downstairs he looks quickly into the living room and Steve's office turned art studio. Both are empty and surprisingly neat. Usually he can count on a mess from Steve if he's up before him.

He walks into the kitchen and right up to the fridge, smiling when he notices the Mason jar filled with an already prepared smoothie. Attached is a sticky note with a smiley face and a quick note about how "Sharing is Caring."

Sam pulls out the jar and laughs to himself, with Steve's current Pinterest obsession he's been working himself into a frenzy to find any and all uses for the things.

He takes his smoothie to the counter and, pushing Steve's newspaper to the side, pulls out the book of poetry he'd gotten from his sister just weeks ago. He hasn’t started his copy yet but Sarah swears up and down it's a must read and she's never led him astray before.

He settles in, turning pages and taking sips of his smoothie between page turns. It's as he's rounding off the third selection that the front door opens. He continues reading even as Steve walks in, Mimi yipping happily between his legs.

Sam looks up and smiles at the picture the two of them paint. He marks his page and closes the book just as Mimi barrels into the legs of his stool. He reaches down, cooing, to lift her into his arms. Once in his arms, she settles her fluffy mass against his chest and barks. Behind Steve Lola, barks in response. Sam can hear her tail hitting her flank as it wags.

"Good morning?" He asks, looking at Steve's smiling face.

"Mhm," Steve murmurs, coming to press a soft kiss to his mouth. Mimi wiggles in his arms and he breaks the kiss to let her trot after Lola.

"They behaved?"

Steve nods. "They always do."

"Please, I've known them both long enough to know that's a lie," Sam teases.

Steve chuckles and leans into Sam's space for another kiss. He traces the crease of Sam's lips with his tongue before gently slipping it into the hot cavern of Sam's mouth. Sam still tastes like his unfinished kale smoothie and Steve like the pack of gum he'd chewed his way through during his walk with Lola and Mimi.

Sam sighs into the kiss, melting against Steve's broad chest and the other man wraps his arms around his waist. After a toe-curling moment longer Steve pulls back, grinning.

"Good morning?" He asks.

"The best," Sam says. “Hey, I’m really sorry about last night.”

Steve shrugs and pulls him even closer. “I am too, thank you.”

Sam lays his head on his shoulder and sighs. “I love you, Steve.”

“I love you too, Sam. So much.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my last fic, so enjoy n leave a comment or something. ✌


End file.
